Dear Billy T and Somerville Speakup Line,
There exists a life-safety issue with the closure of the Ball Square Bridge on Broadway.
There is no excuse not to set in place a temporary bridge as they did when the old steel stuctured bridge was replaced in the 70s’.
This is a slap in the face to the citizens of West Somerville.
In the past several years there have been rapid replacement of major bridges overnight, overweekends, etc., throughout the state.
Ironic, that over 10 years back they
rebuilt the ‘T’ bridge over Harvard St. Medford (by St. Clement’s) and included an additional span of 2 tracks wide. How come they did not widen the Somerville
Bridges then?
Closure of this bridge will create serious problems with response times to this section of the city by Fire/Police/EMS personnel and apparatus.
Added time to response by mutual aid from Medford and Arlington could result in loss of life.
Plus the fact that none of these cities have brought back apparatus/ personnel lost by proposition 2 1/2. Thus less response today.
They need to put in place a temporary bridge first and then construct the new bridge.
There is no justification to jeopardize Somerville lives.
Whether it cost 1M or more to construct a two lane, even a one lane, temporary bridge, it would more than be worth it. I have to travel from east to west everyday, the complete closure of this bridge is absolutely ludricrious in this day and age, on a route that is a commuter route. Think of the lost employment hours, the added travel time to commuters in two directions, the excessive intrusive traffic into the neighbors, and the enormous monies we can expect to spend on ‘special details’. With even a one-lane temporary bridge, one police detail and commuters could travel the usual route with minimal delay, if any. Take a look at this project which completed one month early and under budget. 1900 linear feet. Down in Oct, finished before May. And traffic in this case was simply rerouted to the parallel roadway beneath the overpass, no special details, or traffic off the primary route. In our case, traffic is rerouted circuitiously which no doubt requires lot of costs in police details. Case of competence vs. incompetence. Our bridge should not be impended for a year – its unacceptable. Thank god we have a planning dept, huh, to advocate for our residents, NOT.
https://www.centralmaine.com/2017/05/03/bath-route-1-viaduct-rebuilt-ahead-of-schedule-reopens/